Ep. 527: "The Calm Cousins"
John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Oh, super dupes.
John: Soup dupes.
John: Soupy doopy do.
John: Soupy doopy do, as the Gen Z says.
John: Soupy do.
Merlin: Count Basie.
Merlin: We watched Blazing Saddles last week, and it's got Count Basie in it.
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: It made me think of your dad.
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: That's just such a great scene.
Merlin: I've been dying to show it to my kids.
Merlin: It's April in Paris, which I think you could argue is his signature song.
Merlin: Oh, well, I think you could argue.
Merlin: Well, there's a riff in that.
Merlin: I'm not an arguer, you know.
Merlin: Huh, I'm gonna write that down.
Merlin: Argue or no, I just like that one part.
Merlin: I mean, I first saw it when I was too young.
Merlin: Me too.
Merlin: Me too.
Merlin: Like that ska song.
Merlin: I saw too much, much too young.
Merlin: And I was 12 or 13.
Merlin: And then there's that part.
Merlin: So, you know, I grew up here in April in Paris.
Merlin: It's like April in Paris, April in Kalamazoo, whatever, right?
Merlin: But there's this one part where I don't think we've seen that it's Count Basie's orchestra yet.
Merlin: Sorry, spoilers for Blazing Saddles, 1974.
Merlin: and we see cleavon little pulling in on his horse and here and it's such a nice piece of arrangement you know i'm talking about count basie and the ends like this do you think he knew at the time the first time he went talk talk talk do you think he knew that was that was the way he should end songs
Merlin: John has died.
Merlin: John is gone.
Merlin: It's just me and Count Basie now.
Merlin: Oh, what happened?
Merlin: Oh, you're gone.
Merlin: We should probably start over.
John: I'm talking about Count Basie.
John: No, it's in the show.
John: But you don't have to edit this.
John: No, I hit the mute button.
John: I don't even know how.
John: I don't even know how.
John: I just wanted you to say you like that part where Count Basie goes, dink, dink, dink, dink.
John: Bye.
John: And then the band hits.
John: If you're gifted and you do something like that one time and you just go, there it was.
John: I mean, the thing is, Count Basie, he never had flipped any big tood on anybody, you know?
Merlin: But he knew...
Merlin: See, you talk about swinging.
Merlin: And some people understand how to swing.
Merlin: Some people understand the idea of how to swing.
Merlin: But it's not just a joke.
Merlin: He's more than a man with a piano and a hat like the skipper.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That guy knew how to swing.
Merlin: 24 guys with horns.
Merlin: And then he goes, plink, plink, plink, plink.
Merlin: So good.
Merlin: I saw him at Disneyland, you know.
Merlin: You saw him at Disneyland.
Merlin: Your father, your father would now, okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: I'm going to interrogate this.
Merlin: John, we have so much to talk about.
John: I know.
John: Right about that same time.
John: Not that long after Blazing Saddles.
John: What would it have been?
John: 676?
John: 676?
John: 77 how would i know how would you know is it when you were photographing the teacup
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: That's the same trip.
John: The teacup on the record cover is also the time I saw Count Basie.
Merlin: Did I send you the thing that Spotify does where it has created its own aftermarket 3D imaging where the cup moves closer towards you as you listen to the car parts?
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: I'll send it to you.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: That sounds terrible.
Merlin: It's terrible.
Merlin: It is absolutely terrible.
Merlin: That is terrible.
It is.
Merlin: It's a regular Main Street USA Gaia bomb.
John: Well, you know, that was the thing about Main Street USA.
John: When I was in Disneyland, at a certain point I noticed, I may have told you about this.
John: Yeah.
John: I was walking around ye olde town.
Yeah.
John: and all the other towns yeah yeah the new orleans town and uh cowboy town and you know these are the pirate town pirate town the trademark names a future town and um walk it around come on in to the golden beetle juice review get your reservations early folks
Merlin: Oh, the moose outside should have told you.
Merlin: Did you remember that?
Merlin: We had Diamond Horseshoe Review, and you had to get, you can only get reservations on the same day, and that had to be like the first thing that you did.
Merlin: If you wanted to go to the review, you had to get reservations early.
John: Yeah, I mean, my dad and I definitely did not do that.
John: Whatever that was.
John: For sure, no.
Merlin: Plink, plink, plink.
Merlin: Did your dad take that photo of you in the teacup?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: I don't know why.
Merlin: I just always figured it was your mom.
Merlin: No, no, no, no.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Continue.
Merlin: So 76.
Merlin: And so he was probably playing, I'm guessing, is it over where they make funnel cakes?
Merlin: Oh, so this is what I'm saying.
Merlin: You know, that gazebo with the New Orleans cafe?
Merlin: Was it over there?
John: In 77, right, Disneyland was only 20 years old.
John: And so they hadn't done anything to it.
John: It was still exactly as it had been made.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: That's such an old man thing to say.
Merlin: They hadn't done anything to it.
Merlin: 20 years, same place.
Merlin: Hadn't painted a parking space.
Merlin: Nothing.
John: It was the same drinking fountains.
Merlin: They had this guy over here.
Merlin: They did introduce things like the Haunted Mansion and stuff.
Merlin: Oh, they put stuff in, right.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Oh, they had not rebranded it.
Merlin: None of that.
John: Yeah, they hadn't gotten cued, is what you mean.
John: I think they were in the process of building Space Mountain the first time I went, and then I went again, and they had just opened Space Mountain.
John: But yeah, Frontier Town hadn't changed.
John: But walking around with my kid, I realized everywhere I went, I was hearing ragtime music.
John: I was hearing banjo playing.
John: You know, Disney's like throwing music at you everywhere you go.
Merlin: Speakers everywhere that you don't see, and they're pretty subtle.
Merlin: And it's good.
Merlin: It's real good.
Merlin: And you don't notice the transition from Frontier Town to Pirate Town.
Merlin: You don't even notice that the pavement bricks under your feet are changing in subtle ways.
Merlin: There's nowhere where you could say this is now, I don't know, a Peter Pan town.
John: well when you're coming out of star wars town there's definitely that like we don't know how to transition from star wars there's a reason they put it over on the side yeah like yeah so you're gonna go through a tunnel and there's gonna be a while here where you don't know where you are which i thought was good you know and there's room over there for for them to do more but but i i realized when i first came to disneyland
John: All that music was live.
Merlin: There was a lot of bands, small bands, big bands.
Merlin: There's bands just walking around, and they just stop and do a FAMU-style show for you.
John: That's right.
John: Banjo players.
John: There were horn players everywhere.
John: And Count Basie.
John: And Count Basie was only one of probably 40 acts that played there that week.
John: That's crazy.
Merlin: Did he know Count Basie was going to be there?
Merlin: Oh, I'm sure he did, but if he didn't... Isn't it like me showing up somewhere and you're playing?
John: Yeah, or you're like, oh, honey, by the way... I guess R.E.M.
John: 's over by the Haunted Mansion.
John: It turns out Teenage Fan Club is here.
John: What a weird... How strange.
John: But at the same time, the way my dad lived, and as you remember, the way the 1970s were, 100% possible that...
John: He had no idea.
John: And then he was just like, oh, look at that.
John: Count Basie's here.
John: Well, now I know what I'm doing.
John: Yeah.
John: So here's your D tickets or whatever.
John: Get the fuck out of here.
Merlin: Here's 14 A tickets.
Merlin: Ride the swan boats, kid.
Merlin: Ride this one thing.
Merlin: You like that carousel?
Merlin: You like that carousel?
Merlin: I hated the fucking A tickets.
Merlin: I hated the A tickets more than the free stuff.
John: What are the A tickets even worth?
John: Oh, the Jitney bus.
John: Thank you.
John: It's like Elliot Smith said.
John: You get a food stamp dollar, and what's it good for?
John: It's good for one sticker.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Moon is light bulb breaking.
John: But knowing that and then thinking about it.
John: Did I talk to you about this?
John: I don't know.
John: The realization that I had that there's a reason that there was all that live music in 1977.
John: It's not that Disneyland is cheap now.
John: It's that there are too chintzy to pay for those guys.
John: It's that none of those people are alive anymore.
Merlin: In 1977, there's no trumpeters anymore.
John: All those dudes were in their 50s and 60s, and they were the ones that had invented ragtime.
John: You know, all those guys.
Merlin: You're saying you got some guys up there.
Merlin: You say, hey, would you guys know how to play hot jazz?
Merlin: And they're like, fucking hey, hot jazz.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm playing.
Merlin: Two, three, four.
John: I'm playing in New Orleans town here at Disneyland.
John: Yeah.
John: But I'm from New Orleans.
John: God, the indignity.
John: And I was playing in New Orleans.
John: Pirate town.
John: It's in 1929.
John: Yeah.
John: And nobody needed that music at the time.
John: There wasn't any market for it.
John: So you're walking around.
John: Probably gobbling them up, probably at scale.
John: Yeah, Disneyland was like, hey, shit, we'll pay you guys.
John: Why don't you come here and add some vibe?
John: And these guys were like, it's a good gig.
John: It's a hell of a gig.
Merlin: But you're saying this is people who might have been in New Orleans or Paris or wherever, like playing.
John: Not might have been.
Merlin: Really?
John: Because the thing is, anybody that hadn't been there, anybody that wasn't one of the
John: You know, the real players would have been competing with the real players for the job.
John: So it's like, hey, I'm a young saxophone player.
Merlin: And it wasn't way shorter.
Merlin: You know, I mean, it wasn't, you know, people that were in like Return to Forever or something.
John: It was older guys.
John: There wasn't any market for for modern jazz.
John: At Disneyland.
John: Traditional, yeah, yeah.
John: No, no, no, I mean, yeah, it would have been all like big band stuff.
Merlin: Oh, you mean the minor jazz quartet?
Merlin: You come out there with like a marimba or something.
Merlin: There wouldn't have been, maybe a marimba.
Merlin: No, no, I know what you mean.
Merlin: I mean, that's the kind of thing that you would hear.
Merlin: Caribbean town.
Merlin: You could put them in outfits and have them play at Tomorrowland Terrace, bleep bloop, but like, or you would see them at one of the resorts, but you would not see them in a themed area of the park, you know, playing Bitches Brew or whatever.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: Not at all.
John: No, jazz music continued to be very dangerous, you know, if it was not structured.
Merlin: It made a lot of young women roll down their hosiery.
John: Until, you know what they did to jazz, they made it smooth.
John: They made it smooth.
John: As soon as you make it smooth, you know, all the danger goes out of it.
John: It survived.
John: It's still around, sure.
Merlin: I mean, you know, are you saying you would reject Chet Baker is what you're telling me?
John: No, Chet Baker.
John: What are you even talking about?
Merlin: You know what?
John: There's six people listening to this show that are like, I think I know what they're talking about.
John: And everybody else is looking out the window.
Merlin: Chet Baker.
Merlin: Chet Baker.
Merlin: He's playing over in Haunted Town.
Merlin: Don't let him sit on the window, Phil.
Merlin: He died when you were just a kid, just a college kid.
Merlin: The documentary and the year he died, I think, was 1987.
John: Yeah, something like that.
John: And you know what?
Merlin: He already had all his teeth kicked out by a drug dealer, and then he had to sell his horn.
Merlin: He couldn't play a horn anymore because he had to get dentures.
Merlin: Then he got dentures.
Merlin: I think he had to sell his dentures and his horn.
Merlin: It was some kind of a package deal.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
John: He is the same age then as you are now.
John: Well, you think he was?
John: I think he wasn't much more than about his mid-50s.
John: Remember how handsome he was in the 50s?
Merlin: Remember how handsome I was in the 50s?
Merlin: You just sent me a photo of you in the 50s.
Merlin: Three of us.
Merlin: I think we're King of Thai Noodle.
Merlin: It's you and your lovely bride and me.
Merlin: And we're all making a little bit of a face.
Merlin: But it's back before we learned how to make faces and photos.
Merlin: We're just being photographed.
Merlin: I don't know who took the photo.
Merlin: Probably Eric.
Merlin: I don't know.
John: No, no, I don't think Eric ever took a photo of us.
John: Who would have been out to... He's smoking, he's always smoking.
John: Yeah, who would have been out to eat with us?
John: Every restaurant in San Francisco at that time had the worst lighting in the world.
Merlin: Oh, oh boy, oh boy, you see it.
John: It was like they just turned on arc lights.
Merlin: It's like every restaurant, well, there's certain kinds of restaurants, really lit like a Kinko's.
Merlin: Yeah, we went up to see Harold mod the other night and got got dinner in in the Richmond and There were several places we passed that really looked like kinko's with pho Very very bright John very bluish lights very very overhead It looked like the punishment office an environment that cops really want to eat in You know cops cops like hey, we got to stop and get some food
John: And they see that and they're just like, yeah, that looks like a place that we get that Malcolm X seat in the back where they can face the door.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But your point, your big point, which I think is an important one that I'm talking over because I'm in a great mood and I had so much to talk to you about.
Merlin: I love that you're in a great mood.
Merlin: Do you?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Sorry we're so late.
John: You being in a great mood is a great thing.
Merlin: It's one of the greats.
Merlin: Us both being in a good mood.
Merlin: John, we're on a good run.
Merlin: No, I'm going to jinx it.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: You don't listen to podcasts, but we've been on a really good run.
Merlin: Oh, that's good.
Merlin: This show's been very, very good.
Merlin: Like two years now, it's been really good.
John: This show's won two phony awards, at least two phony awards.
John: I think four phony awards, if you count.
Merlin: If you do your bit, I'll do my bit, just so you know.
Merlin: We won the left one and the right one.
Merlin: Or as they say in Australia, we won the right one and the left one.
John: That's right.
John: Thompson and Thompson.
John: Oh, my God.
John: They're not brothers.
John: They're not married.
Merlin: Are you talking about Akbar and Jeff?
Merlin: Yeah, Akbar and Jeff.
Merlin: Brothers?
Merlin: Lovers?
Merlin: Both?
Merlin: I know what you're talking about.
Merlin: You're talking about that boy reporter and his little dog Snowy.
Merlin: That's exactly right.
Merlin: Arf, arf.
Merlin: And that sea captain?
Merlin: He's named after a fish?
Merlin: Arf.
Merlin: He drinks it.
Merlin: You know that's Andy Serkis in the movie.
John: Is it really?
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Captain Havoc.
Merlin: I'm not able to watch movies about comic books.
Merlin: Oh, it's a good movie, John.
Merlin: It's a Spielberg, and it's really good.
Merlin: A Tintin movie, you're saying?
Merlin: It's a Tintin movie.
Merlin: Now, I want to tell you it's animated, and I want that to put you off.
Merlin: But is this one of those, like, express train to the Christmas town?
Merlin: Yeah, well, okay, that's a very broad brush.
Merlin: It's a very, I'm telling you, it's, anyways, yeah, the Thompsons, and you know, that's Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.
Merlin: We're always in those movies as friends.
Merlin: If you've ever seen something like a Hot Fuzz, or you've seen like a Shaun of the Dead, it's just two actors.
John: I've seen a lot of pictures of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, and I know that they are funny British things, and I feel like I should watch them, because I like funny British people.
Merlin: He's my favorite director working today.
John: Is that right?
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, he's got contenders, but like... British people can talk to pans.
Merlin: No, no, no, no.
Merlin: Only British people can fly.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That man's gone now.
Merlin: Is there ever going to be... Okay, first of all, I don't... They couldn't make that now.
Merlin: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: You can't say that by English people.
Merlin: Now you have to call them them.
Merlin: When I was a kid, you'd say, oh, is there a Norton edition of that?
Merlin: Or like a Norton annotated edition of that?
Merlin: And you'd know that that meant a book.
Merlin: So like, will there be a Norton edition of whatever this is?
Merlin: Because I would love that.
Merlin: I think about that sometimes.
Merlin: I'd like a concordance or an index or indices of this program and people will be able to say, that's that Mr. Show show that none of you young people have seen.
John: A lot of people are working on that, I think.
John: Do they know?
John: But I don't think they're coordinating with each other.
John: That's probably for the best.
John: And so you're going to get... Let's keep them isolated.
Merlin: I think that's smart.
Merlin: It's like Minority Report.
Merlin: They're like the Samantha Mortons, like laying in the kiddie pool.
John: Yeah.
John: People are going to be describing this program.
John: One of them is going to say, it's shaped like a giant snake.
John: And another one is going to say, it's big like a house.
John: I see.
Merlin: It's like the five blind rabbis in the metaphor.
Merlin: I get that.
Merlin: Well, it's like trying to say, how do you describe Tristram Shandy to somebody?
Merlin: It's like you try to describe, or you try to describe, for that matter, let's say- Or you try to describe.
Merlin: You try, yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Or the one with the man on the horse.
Merlin: If you try to describe, there were, Man of La Mancha was the musical, I remember, but-
Merlin: But there are books where if you take it out of the cultural context, you say, hey, look, when they printed Tristan Shandy, it had a solid black page in it.
Merlin: Like, do you know how weird that was at the time?
Merlin: Moby Dick?
Merlin: Moby Dick, another example, right?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Made out of whale skin.
John: Well, one of the chapters was.
John: I skipped that one.
John: This was the problem.
John: You know, I had a minor in Russian lit.
John: I always forget that.
John: The whole business of reading Russian literature in translation...
John: is that fully 25% of the...
Merlin: of the context of the meaning of what you're reading is just gone because it's it's simply not sort of available to you like if you read stuff if you read stuff for word if you read english language stuff if you are if you are comma like me comma somebody who only speaks english relatively fluently as a language and don't really speak fluently others i can i can fake my way through parts of other languages if i need to but
Merlin: The wordplay of English is like why I'm still alive.
Merlin: But it's difficult outside of the context, outside of the time.
Merlin: And that's why you need a Norton, to just return briefly, a Norton Annotated Edition is something where you could go, oh, so this is Eliot, T.S.
Merlin: Eliot here is referring to the grail myth.
Merlin: And in particular, you know, there's this one particular book about the Grail myth and this is about, you know, Odysseus and all that kind of stuff where you're like, just so you know, and obviously this is a quote from Hamlet or whatever.
Merlin: And I think that would be handy here, but I don't know how you do that in a truly, forgive my saying, probative way.
Merlin: Because you would also then need a little short video clip of a man saying kiss the pan.
Merlin: And the people say, why am I watching?
Merlin: Why does my screen say, why does my screen have a man with eyebrows saying kiss the pan?
John: Yeah.
John: And this is the, I mean, the thing about Russian lit is you can read the annotated version.
John: You're not going to get wordplay, right?
John: But you're not, well, and even if they, even if they get the wordplay, you know, you can only go so far like, oh, and this is a homophobe and that is a, and that is a phonohome.
John: And he's laughing about this because it sounds like this, but that isn't really what he's laughing about.
Merlin: Well, there's this whole conversation, like in so much black humor in Russia and the Soviet Union, like there's a subtext here to their whole conversation that would be completely clear to everybody else, but will not be clear to you.
John: Well, and a lot of the stuff that I think was behind that,
John: But behind the curtain is the same stuff that's behind the curtain with us, which is you don't actually care.
John: Like nobody actually really wants to watch Mr. Show that hasn't already watched it.
Merlin: So, so true.
Merlin: The thing is, John, you just said something important because without having to say it, which is kind of what Russian literature is all about.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: But you're also pointing out, like, you know, that's really true for books.
Merlin: If you don't get the reference, that's okay.
Merlin: It's just that if you do get the reference, you're going to be able to triangulate three cultural points that will be a nice, warm feeling to you.
Merlin: This is why I talk the way I talk.
Merlin: I promise you, I don't say that's much stuff that makes absolutely no sense.
Merlin: It's just you don't recognize what it is that I'm referring to, which is fine, because it is very random.
Merlin: But you will get a very warm feeling.
Merlin: If you understand, for example, when Bob Odenkirk sings a song where he says, I am a camera.
Merlin: And then I would try to relate that to that REM song about the person who died.
John: Sure, sure.
John: Well, an Aztec camera, honestly, if you're going to go all the way.
John: All I need is everything.
John: A camera obscura.
Merlin: I mean, here we are.
Merlin: Now we're in the internet.
Merlin: Now we're here.
Merlin: Now we're back in San Francisco where they shot a lot of Harold and Maude.
John: My kid has started to read.
John: She's just bumped up a level of books.
John: Right.
John: She's starting to read books.
John: She's moving on to chapter books now.
John: She's moving on to some books.
John: She's reading a romance right now.
John: Is that a chapter book?
Merlin: I'm going to start asking that to more people.
Merlin: Is that a chapter book?
John: I just finished the new Dan Brown anthology.
John: Is that a chapter book?
John: Is that a chapter book or a picture book?
John: It's set in London in like 1680 or something like that.
John: And we've been working for a long time on context, which is context-backed vocabulary.
John: Yeah.
John: Where it's like, what does that word mean?
John: What does that word mean?
John: Well...
John: You can run yourself ragged.
John: Trying to figure out what words mean.
John: When we were kids, all we had was the dictionary.
John: And there was absolutely, I swear to you.
Merlin: Dictionary Encyclopedia Thesaurus.
Merlin: And like, even if you did find out what the joke meant and somebody explained it to you thoroughly, you might end up going, oh, yeah, that's funny, I guess.
John: Here's what we didn't have.
Merlin: You can't create that context in retrospect and make people, put people back at the time when that was sublime, that reference.
Right.
John: What we didn't have was a grown-up that you could ask, what does this mean over and over 16 times in an hour while that grown-up is also trying to sit and read a book, right?
John: Or go through their old hard drive.
John: If I had been... I'm standing when Daddy's standing at the desk.
John: If I'd gone to my dad, sitting in the same room with him and gone, what does this word mean?
John: Like the second time, he would have said...
John: Figure it out.
John: Shouldn't you be playing an organized sport?
John: But so for a long time, we've been working on this, you know, not to fucking be a cliche of myself to say like, hey, there's a way for you to figure this out on your own.
John: But she's reading this book now set in London in 1680.
John: And a lot of the words that she's encountering, we're having a new conversation, which is, look, this is a word.
John: That you're never gonna need again because this occupation of someone that turns fish eyes into bubble tea Doesn't exist anymore, right?
John: And you're never gonna use that.
John: This is not a witty word
John: What this is is a word that this writer is employing to put you in this time.
Merlin: I referred to you a few episodes ago as a fish wife, which is a reference that people would recommend.
Merlin: It's not a very, as we used to say, politically correct thing, but that's the term you would give to some kind of like a local busybody.
Merlin: And it was the part of the pescatarian dyad who brought fish to your village and then happened to be a person, I think, at least in the lore, who happened to hear a lot of the gossip and then would pass it on to people.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: But first of all, don't say fish wife now.
Merlin: Oh, why not?
Merlin: Well, no, no, no.
Merlin: Shoot for the moon.
Merlin: Yes, but unless they're both, they're fish they.
Merlin: Yes, okay.
Merlin: And I'm very happy for them.
John: Yes, I support everybody.
John: I don't want to fish shame anybody.
John: But what I'm saying is...
Merlin: And so she and I have been doing this where I'm like... And your dad would probably just go look it up in the dictionary, right?
Merlin: Or if you can't find it, like, it's not my job to be your cultural Sherpa.
John: No, you know what we did.
John: And what I think is, I think this is increasingly a lost art, which is you just keep reading over the word that you don't know.
John: And eventually you get it.
John: You understand, maybe you're three sentences away and you're like, oh, oh, oh, I get it.
John: Okay, so a fishwife is...
John: Not the wife of a fish.
John: It's not the wife of a fishmonger.
John: It's a gossip, and the gossip is because... You know, you put it together as a reader.
Merlin: In those Russian novels, I bet there's a lot of... I'm just guessing here, because I have experienced this, and a lot of things I've read is a kind of subtlety that is... It's so subtle that it's, like I say, sublime.
Merlin: Something that, like, is something very deep and revelatory and subtle.
Merlin: And even if you explained it, the person, they might get it, but it's that...
Merlin: It's not, they say, what do they say, that juice wasn't worth the squeeze?
Merlin: Like, if you did spend the next six weeks trying to track down one word, you still wouldn't be able to get at what, I think what you're saying, the context of what that distinction, that subtlety meant at the time.
Merlin: Like, this might be somebody, I haven't read those books, I'm sorry to say.
Merlin: I tried, and we've had this conversation before, and I'm going to tell you what I said before, which is I really got hung up on the names.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: In, like, in Crime and Punishment.
Merlin: Yeah, there's a lot of names.
Merlin: I mean, and Brothers Dostoevsky, but, like, I really, there was a time when I considered myself a very serious 19-year-old man.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: And I had a used paperback copy of Crime and Punishment, and I really felt, like, I just read a couple narrow volumes of Sartre, and I really felt like I was ready for something substantial.
John: I've got a jacket that you wore at the time, and it's full of seriousness.
John: Yeah, only a serious man would have worn a coat.
John: I finally had to have it let out.
John: No, the point I'm making is that, to her, is just that you don't need to know the meaning of every word.
John: What you need to do is get, you have to get that relationship with language where you are flowing, where you are just reading.
John: And the words that go by that you haven't zeroed in on,
John: That doesn't – don't ever let that slow you down.
John: Don't ever let lack of comprehension stop you.
Merlin: It shouldn't stop – I mean, and I think I totally get what you're saying.
Merlin: I was the sort of person – I'm the sort of person everybody hates because, A, I would write in books, but, B, I would generally write in books in light pencil.
Merlin: So, like, if I ran across something I totally didn't know –
Merlin: like when you're writing writers who are professional writers journalists have learned that phrase like tk which is i just need to get i know there is a knowable length of the golden gate bridge but i don't want to stop to look it up so i'll say golden gate bridge tk feet and i'll look i'll do a search later for all the tks me or my like production people will be able to you know sort of fill that in just stopping long enough especially as i'll come back to in a second with shakespeare stopping just long enough to put a light
Merlin: Pencil line under something but not stop reading don't stop the show for one word You don't know that velocity that you've not velocity.
Merlin: That's always over fast certainly not velocity that's over slow But like if you've got a head-on with that reading and the words are coming to you less in a less difficult way Don't stop to go look something up keep your velocity because you may not get it back easily Keep your altitude as we used to say my family The younger members of my family who were avid hikers
John: When we would hike, we'd get up, you know, you spend a lot of time, burn a lot of energy getting up high in the mountains.
John: Yeah.
John: And then you'd encounter some obstacle.
John: You'd have to go down in order to get around the obstacle in order to get closer to the peak It's like the mountain version of tacking which I learned in sailing Yes, which is like sometimes you got to get to get the wind you want You've got to get through the wind you don't want and you do that in a pattern Sometimes you're if I understand John John saying sometimes you you very necessarily need to go down to get up You have to go down to get up But there were some cousins of mine who hated to lose altitude
John: And they would sit at their altitude and they would say, there's got to be a way that we can get from here to there without.
John: That's not how Mountain Dew.
John: I know.
John: That's right.
John: And then there are other ones, the wise ones, the calm ones, the calm cousins were like, sometimes you got to go down to go up, man.
John: And everybody was like, they were probably all on weed.
John: I don't know.
John: I was a 10-year-old and everybody was on weed in 1978.
John: You couldn't find a person that wasn't on weed.
John: Are you kidding me?
John: Russ never sleeps.
John: The reason this comes up is, see, I was in Hawaii last week.
John: Do you know Ohana means family?
John: It does.
John: It's so lovely.
John: But I was down at a beach I'd never been to, and when I arrived there, there was like a pudge on the sand, some kind of pudgy budge, something that didn't – it looked like a rock, but it was too soft.
John: And as I got closer, it was a seal.
John: It was a monk seal.
Merlin: Who had pulled up and was taking a nap a sea lion or full-on seal a seal like a big-ass seal a monk Ass seal big ass looking like a looking like a torpedo I don't know if a lot of our listeners have been close to a seal first of all And I wouldn't mean to sound like I was being that guy But a lot of people say just call everything a seal a lot of times they mean a sea lion Which is those adorable things you see now.
Merlin: I don't know if a lot of you have been close to an actual seal They are
Merlin: It's Eldritch Horror.
Merlin: Seals are so much bigger and tougher and scarier than you think.
Merlin: And because you usually watch them in San Francisco on an island that's a quarter of a mile away, you don't really get a sense of scale of how fucking big ass a seal is.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's a pudge.
John: This was a chonker, and she was sleeping on the beach, and there weren't very many people around.
John: So it was like, oh, there she is.
John: I think we all have grown up enough now to know don't fuck with a thing that you see from the ocean.
John: Don't fuck with a thing you see.
Merlin: If the thing from the ocean is on the land Okay, let me real quick just in passing so like if you see a big thing should you poke it with a stick?
John: Oh, no, no, okay Should you try to flip it over?
John: You know what?
John: You should read the placards because generally there will be a placard on the on the beach that you all know in England that'd be a blue plaque
John: Yeah, like, don't, well, no, it's not a historical chonker.
John: No.
John: It's just a plaque that says, look, don't, don't fuck with this.
John: If you see this, don't fuck with it.
John: Hello, hello, hello.
John: If you see this, don't fuck with it, right?
Merlin: Don't fuck with it.
Merlin: No, no, no, I understand.
Merlin: People have died here.
Merlin: We have a sign on RBJS, you know, where it says people have died here.
Merlin: People have died here.
Merlin: That's such a great way to start a sign.
Merlin: Isn't it?
Merlin: It's an R.A.M.
Merlin: song.
Merlin: Second of all, don't fuck around on Ocean Beach.
Merlin: Take a souvenir.
John: But no, but so, so I go around the chonker, I go down the bridge, I go down the beach, I get...
John: I get my snork on.
John: I get in the water.
John: I'm looking for some turts.
John: And I'm trying to get aloha.
John: And there's always an aloha.
John: I'm always seeking aloha.
John: I was describing to my kid that aloha to me in the water means I'm never not anxious.
John: I'm absolutely 100% never relaxed.
John: That is not
John: And for me to be in the water snorkeling and be relaxed seems, I don't know what, I don't know what that, what that would be.
Merlin: I'm still incredibly anxious.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, fair to say, like you find yourself with access to something that usually you don't have access to quite so easily.
John: And I think a big part of it is I am anxious, but I am also doing it.
John: I am also in flow.
Merlin: My key has been being anxious and deciding that it doesn't bother me.
John: Well, so this is it, right?
John: And I'm realizing that this is the big part.
John: It means no worries.
John: Is like, I'm not trying to not, I'm not trying to do away with anxiousness.
John: I'm not trying to, I'm not even claiming that you can.
Merlin: I'm saying you have to then.
Merlin: So many people have no idea how ironic that is.
Merlin: I'm going to get rid of my anxiety.
Merlin: I'm going to get to sleep.
John: Fucking get to sleep.
John: And for me, what it is, is I'm out here.
John: I'm not even looking for turtles.
John: I'm out here waiting for the turtles to find me.
John: You're the punch.
John: And whatever that is, is like,
John: Ja Rastafari, right?
John: Yeah.
John: But I'm not... Just like smoking pot doesn't make you mellow, this may come as a surprise to some of our pot friends.
Merlin: Some of the amateurs out there, some of the part-timers.
John: You are not currently mellow.
John: I don't care how mellow you think you are.
John: Anyway, so I'm out there.
Merlin: There's no such thing as the pizza police.
Merlin: You're okay.
I'm...
John: They're coming.
Merlin: But listen, if I called twice because I thought I mispronounced the word pepperoni, would they alert, you know, like the authorities?
Merlin: What authorities would they alert?
Merlin: You know, the like enforcement arm of the pie?
Merlin: Talking about the pizza police?
Merlin: So I'm out floating and I'm turting.
Merlin: You're turting.
Merlin: You're waiting for bioavailable turt.
John: Yeah.
John: And the thing about looking for turtles is you're never looking for turtles.
John: You're just not.
John: As soon as you look for turtles, you're not going to find them.
John: You're just not looking for turtles.
John: You're looking at sea anemones and you're looking at fish and whatnot.
Merlin: That's like love, right?
Merlin: You've got to sort of unfocus your eyes a little bit and see what finds you.
John: And the fourth turtle that I swam, you know, I had one of those times with the turtle where we were swimming together and she went up to take a breath and I went up to take a breath and we looked at each other in the day.
John: And then we went down again.
John: And then she swam for a while and I swam for a while.
John: And then she went up to take another breath and we looked at each other up in the sky.
John: I like pop up out of the water and we look at each other.
John: And, you know, a turtle doesn't need to take a breath that often.
John: So she was playing this game with me.
John: We went up and popped our heads up out of the water and looked at each other five times.
John: And, you know, and I'm like, I don't know what the game is, but I really am enjoying this game.
John: It never occurred to me before to, like, when they go up to take a breath.
John: You're there to play the game, but you're not there to understand the game.
John: I have no idea what this game is, but I'm enjoying it.
Merlin: It's fun.
John: And then I hear somebody yell.
John: And I pop my head up.
John: That's the comedian Maria Bamford.
John: And, you know, there are a few people standing around, and they're all looking at me from the shore.
John: And they go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
John: And I'm like, huh, what?
John: And somebody goes, seal.
John: And points.
John: And the seal is in the water.
John: And the seal is right.
John: Wait, the original Pudge?
John: The Pudge.
John: Yeah.
John: She's a big gal.
John: She decided to slide back in.
John: Have a dip.
John: And so I put my head down underwater and I'm down in the water.
John: And it's kind of, you know, the water's a little bit cloudy.
John: It's, you know, we're in the reef.
Merlin: So it's, you know, stuff's.
Merlin: It's not an aquarium, John.
Merlin: People are out there.
Merlin: When I say people, I mean life.
Merlin: Life is life, like Leibach said.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Life.
Merlin: Life.
Merlin: So you're out there.
Merlin: Life is happening.
Merlin: And life is not about a clear aquarium.
Merlin: Get that right before you even buy your ticket.
John: So I put my mask back, I go back underwater, and then out of the gloaming, here comes Seal Face.
John: Wait, that's crazy.
John: And Seal Face.
John: Not scared of you.
John: Not at all.
John: But also not being aggressive?
John: Not being aggressive.
John: Seal also is not really, she's not swimming hard, she's also just floating.
John: and i'm floating so you start to wonder what they're looking for that morning well that's what i am wondering right i wrote it down here right here i wrote it down two minutes ago what what what is it what was the turt looking for that morning and what did they find well so my experience of turtles and i learn this every time is that whatever they're looking for they they're not looking for right like the the whole aloha thing is like
John: The turtle, the wave pushes the turtle, the current moves the turtle, and the turtle does not resist the current.
John: And so whatever the turtle was looking at one second ago, the current moves the turtle over here, and now the turtle is content to be over here.
Merlin: There'll be more things to see.
Merlin: We're going somewhere.
Merlin: Here we go.
Yeah.
John: The turtle does not think of the current as a foreign force that's pushing it away from what it's trying to do.
John: It's so good.
John: The current comes and the turtle, whatever the turtle is doing, it's doing it over here now.
John: And so when I'm in the water, I'm never chasing anything.
John: I never see something and chase it.
John: I'm always just like trying to get back to as little motion as possible and let the
John: Let the ocean determine what I'm doing.
John: Cause I feel like as soon as I start to fight the ocean, I'm going to, that's where I'm going to die.
John: Cause the ocean doesn't give a shit about me.
Merlin: And you know, that's why they put that sign at ocean beach that people have died here.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: People have died here.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Those rip currents.
Merlin: Like there's like, I first, the best piece of strategy is like, don't go with, don't go out.
Merlin: Don't go out there.
Merlin: Don't go out there, A. But if you do go out there, you should probably be ready for Riptides.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Because my understanding of it is, I have an incomplete education, but my understanding of how to deal with anything like that, even just being out at sea and like, should I start struggling and screaming?
Merlin: No, probably not.
Merlin: There's a way to do this, but it turns out it's not the way that you think you should do it, and the panicking is not helping.
Merlin: And don't chase the walrus.
Merlin: Don't chase the please, don't.
Merlin: The pudge.
Merlin: The...
John: But, like, I've definitely gotten into this thing where it's like, oh, if I want to go from here to there, the current's going to move me like that, and then it's going to take me back over here.
John: It's just like the mountain.
Merlin: It's like the mountain when the current moves me that way I can kick and go because it's because I'm going with but you're working with it It's like you're trying to get get the weather gauge on the Asheron Like you've got you're gonna have to like you have to change that direction to benefit from it But you can't make the ocean take you where you want.
John: That's right It's like tacking then I just stop and the current moves me over here and if I was if I continued to paddle against it I'd just be burning gas and
John: And so I just move over here.
John: And then when I feel the current start to push me again, then I start kicking again.
John: I haven't read anything about this.
John: This is just me trying not to drown.
John: But anyway, so I'm in the water.
John: And here comes Seal Face.
John: And Seal...
John: She's not moving fast.
John: I'm not moving fast.
John: She just appears out of the mist and all of a sudden her little not little her face which is big as my face.
John: Yeah is What six feet from me and she's looking at me crazy and I'm looking at her and She just has a look of she looks like a dog.
John: She looks like a curious dog and
John: I'm sure I look like a like a UFO spaceman because I'm in this all this weird snorkel gear the space scallop and But as I'm doing this as I'm looking at her as we're looking at each other and I'm thinking this is the biggest This is the most turtle experience I've ever had, but she's not a turtle at all I'm also conscious of Just shouting human shouting Yeah
John: So I popped my head up out of the water and these very very concerned citizens are screaming at me And I know feels part of the story.
Merlin: This is not your party.
Merlin: That's doing the rubber rubber This is somebody these are these are other civilians on show these are civilian civilian civilians get out of the water get out of the water I'm like It's not a shark
John: And also, I'm not doing anything.
John: I was just floating here.
John: For me to get out of the water is to be... And you're not cosplaying a ceviche.
John: You'll probably be fine.
John: Well, I don't know what to do.
John: I don't know why.
John: But I'm guessing... I bet panicking won't help.
John: I'm guessing that it's one of these placards on the side that say, stay 100 feet away from any chonkers that you see.
John: Right, right, right.
John: And so, being mindful of the fact that people are yelling at me,
John: But also mindful of the fact that I'm sharing this
John: this space with this creature that outweighs me by 500 pounds, I go back in the water.
Merlin: Speaking of the weather gauge, they have probably the upper hand in the water in the event of almost anything happening.
Merlin: I believe so.
Merlin: Unless it's inspecting a Les Paul custom, I think the chonker's going to win.
John: You know, sometimes you see an Instagram video where people are like, a great white shark comes up and they just put their hand on its nose and push it away.
John: And they're like here's how you deal with the shark.
Merlin: You just push John You know like that famous image of the plane with the bullet holes in it and it's like well, that's the ones that made it back Well, that's the one who is able whatever that was an Instagram story.
Merlin: That's that survivor bias You don't see the people who tried to gently lovingly push away a shark's beak because because there's no story of that Yeah, that's right there there there their little camera is at the bottom of the ocean Mm-hmm
John: But so I feel like if Seal were to come and boop me, if Seal wanted to boop me, I would let myself be booped.
John: I don't know what I would do.
John: I think I could probably...
John: If a seal wanted to bite my nose off, I could probably punch it in the nose and we would have at least a moment.
Merlin: So my problem is, like, I don't have training in anything, but one of my thoughts would be, well, it is sort of curious that this animal that you saw earlier is moving in an area that is so close to you and is neither pursuing you nor avoiding you.
Merlin: That is very interesting to me.
Merlin: But given that it doesn't seem to be pursuing you,
Merlin: Because it didn't feel, did it feel threatening when it was happening?
Merlin: Not at all.
Merlin: Well, see, that to me is a big deal.
Merlin: Like, I know that's dumb.
Merlin: I'm not such a layperson way to look at it.
Merlin: But like, if this thing's chill, like, I'm not going to freak out.
Merlin: Because, you know, like when you meet a dog and a dog's chill, do you start yelling at the dog?
Merlin: No, you stay chill too.
Merlin: And then everything's usually fine.
Merlin: I wonder if it's like that with the big chunk.
Merlin: Well, so what I did was I started to do the back pedal, which is kind of, you know, I just did like.
Merlin: That's very difficult.
Merlin: That's like a dog running backwards.
Merlin: You don't see it a lot.
John: No, it's very hard for me to back pedal because I'm barely buoyant anyways.
John: But I'm trying to get away from it.
John: Like, okay, I'm being yelled at.
John: I'm going to try and give you five feet.
John: And so she kind of, again, moving very slowly, just sort of circled around me.
John: and i'm circling and we're just in this little pod did you uh again just separated by six feet or so yeah and she's she's following me with her head and watching me and you know when the gently the waves are kind of moving and out out on land it's just this shouting shouting shouting get away get away and i'm like i am not chasing this seal
John: I am trying to get away.
John: So I finally put enough distance between us that I, um, that I'm able to get, you know, over to the jetty and up on land.
John: And I get out and I get a, you know, I get a lot of concerned lecturing from people who have read the placard, uh,
John: And the seal continues to just sort of, you know, just hang out in this little cove where I was.
Merlin: And it's then that I... You don't perceive it seeming to behave any differently based on anything that you're doing?
John: Well, the lecture that I got from everybody... From the shore.
John: From the shore was seals are incredibly dangerous...
John: Um, they're very territorial and they, uh, and you need to get out of the water.
Merlin: Oh, so you might accidentally be, be near babies or something.
Merlin: Is that the idea?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Or near food or what?
John: I was, I was watching her sleep all afternoon.
John: There weren't any babies around.
John: I don't know what she was doing.
John: I've, I've been going to Hawaii my whole life.
John: I've never seen a seal a single time.
John: So I have no idea where they normally hang out.
John: This is my first encounter.
John: But it was then I realized that I had had my phone in my pocket the entire time I had gotten into the water with my phone in my swim trunks and had been swimming around for an hour and a half with my phone in my pocket.
John: Hmm.
John: My phone is not you.
John: You have an iPhone.
John: You're familiar with the product.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, and like, I've been told for years, first about, about the iPhone, about the watch, about all these things, about how it's water resistant and blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: And like, it only is in the last year or so that I've even attempted that with a watch, which has been fine.
Merlin: But I, I have friends who like, honestly, this is not a bit.
Merlin: I have friends who like use their iPhone in the shower, like as a Bluetooth speaker.
Merlin: And I'm like, that's crazy.
Merlin: And they're like, it's never been a problem.
Merlin: I know people who claim that they've gone swimming with their iPhone.
Merlin: Or like accidentally or not I got thrown in the water at a bachelor party or whatever who are like Yeah, and it was it was totally fine.
Merlin: So I but I would think Am I getting correctly that you just realized your phone was in your pocket at this point?
Merlin: You've been out there for a while.
John: Yeah, I'm still I'm still looking at the seal I'm still getting a lecture about how dangerous the seal is and and I'm realizing that I have a You got my phone in my pocket
John: And that was not what I intended to do.
John: And let me tell you, I'm going to add my experience to the handful of anecdotes that you have at your disposal about taking your phone in the shower.
Merlin: I could use a fresh one, yeah.
John: It is not waterproof.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Did you try and take it out and take a photo?
Merlin: Did you try to make a story?
Merlin: Well, no, I took it out and it came on.
John: Mm-hmm, and I was like wow and then I'll be enough the walrus did the same thing with their phone and It was animated so So what then immediately happened with the phone shorted out and oh no John and you're on vacation Well vacation, but you're away from like phone fixing things.
Merlin: That's right.
John: That's right Well, it sucked except
John: I, I, and you know, I'm not a woo person.
John: I'm surrounded by woo people.
John: I know.
John: But I said this, the seal has, because I saw the seal, I, I, I, I became the seal.
John: No, I saw the seal.
John: I be the seal.
John: I, the last picture.
John: You are become seal.
John: I am become seal.
John: The last picture I took with the phone was of the seal on the beach.
John: Did you show it to the seal?
John: I didn't show it to the seal because it shorted out.
John: But I'm but I'm connecting the experience of the seal with the with the death of the phone.
John: And I'm saying this is some this is meant to be.
John: This is a sign.
John: This is a signal.
Merlin: You struggle for a name for it, but it's fair to say high level.
Merlin: This is not an accident.
John: Not an accident.
John: I am not meant to have... This phone is a plague.
John: It is absolutely... I see it all the time.
Merlin: Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity.
John: This phone...
John: is a hateful, hateful thing.
John: I'm in Hawaii.
John: Yes.
John: And my brain, the pleasure centers in my brain, absolutely want me to spend eight hours of the day looking at this phone.
John: And it's gotten to the point, like with any drug, where if someone is trying to take it from me, I turn into angry face.
John: Yeah, I'm just like, no, no, no, no, no.
John: And in the course of the day, I'm looking for excuses like, hey, why don't I just run back to the house and get that and I'll meet you guys there.
John: And what that really is.
John: You just got to get a little sip off of that little flask, that digital flask.
John: I'm just going to go back and get that.
John: But I'm also going to spend 15 minutes looking at my phone.
Merlin: I feel like I'm just checking all of these different, not video cameras, but like I'm checking in.
Merlin: I go through this so often.
Merlin: It's so embarrassing.
Merlin: I don't like to talk about this, but the truth is one of the things that keeps me connected with my phone is I'm checking all the points.
Merlin: the little inputs that I'm scared about.
Merlin: I'm just checking all the things.
Merlin: That could be, like, is somebody mad at me that I didn't know about?
Merlin: It could be, has something horrible happened with the government?
Merlin: You know, it could be, you know, it could be the worst.
Merlin: Never look at cameras in your house when you're away.
Merlin: Like, never.
Merlin: There is nothing good that will ever come of that.
Merlin: If you're out with the turts,
Merlin: and the OG Bloor Boys, you do not, that is, do not, right?
Merlin: And yet, that's my compulsion.
Merlin: My compulsion is I'll go back and get, could get more Hawaiian Tropic.
Merlin: I'll be right back.
Merlin: Does anybody want to shave ice?
Merlin: And then 35 minutes later, you're still trying to get something to load.
Merlin: Because, like, I already, I started to check this.
Merlin: I don't know if you're like me, but that's me.
Merlin: It's an anxiety, it's a mal-
Merlin: Mal-adaptation, is that the word?
Merlin: It's a poor adaptation to anxiety or the feeling of anxiety that I feel poorly adapted to because the checking it doesn't actually help.
Merlin: But is it that you're bored or is it that you're anxious?
John: I love that.
John: It's everything.
John: It has become...
John: the nexus of all emotion, just like drugs.
John: You know, I always said, look, if you get high to celebrate when you're happy and you also get high to mourn when you're sad, if you get drunk when good things happen and get drunk when bad things happen, then every emotion you're experiencing, you're just filtering through this one.
John: You're basically not experiencing your emotions.
Merlin: Well, it's a pachinko game where regardless of the pins that the ball hits, it all ends up in the same slot, which is drugs.
John: Right.
John: And that is my phone.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That is my relationship.
Merlin: That's a bummer.
Merlin: But that is actually, I think, a pretty good realization.
John: When I wake up in the morning.
Merlin: It must have really felt heavy when you realized that.
John: Like the first thing I do when I open it up or when I wake up, I open my eyes.
John: I pick it up.
John: And, you know, I go through all the anxiety checks, right?
John: Is anybody yelling at me?
John: Does anybody need me?
John: Is there an emergency anywhere?
John: And then I go to the New York Times games app.
John: And I think I'm improving my mind and I'm awaking slowly.
John: I'm just coming into the world.
John: It's practically a prescription, John.
John: It's such a good thing.
John: It's just like reading.
John: Do you think how good that is for your mind to do a puzzle in the morning?
Merlin: It seems like it would have to be very good for you.
John: Oh, it's just keeping Parkinson's away.
John: You know, it's just like, oh, this is so good for me.
John: And then that just begins a pattern throughout the day of like, then I've got to check this, then I've got to check that.
John: Now I'm commenting on someone's thing.
John: Now I'm commenting and I'm not even fighting anybody.
John: I'm just like, now I'm on reverb looking at chorus pedals from Japan in the 1980s because I definitely need an extra chorus pedal.
John: You know, it's just like compulsion, compulsion, compulsion.
John: So I'm looking at this seal.
John: Who's who's who's still sitting out there in this miso soup?
John: Where we both were a minute ago and where I would still be if I hadn't been getting yelled at by all the people that had read the placard And I'm looking down at my phone that is it still trying to you know still like light flickering in it like dying I'm like, okay
John: Okay, I get it.
John: I get the message here.
John: I'm not sure if this is the message, but I'm getting a message.
John: I'm getting the message.
John: Yeah, I'm getting of the message, which is You sometimes it needs to be a thing.
John: Sometimes you need sometimes you need a moment Sometimes, you know, two years ago I put time limits on all my apps and for two years I've been
John: Ignore time limit ignore time limit ignore time limit six times a day And it's like okay.
Merlin: I forgot that I did that to an app last month and I every single day I'm like ah fuck you Yeah, exactly your one minute of use for the day is over.
Merlin: I'm a fat fuck off You kidda you get to feel I don't turn it off understand.
Merlin: I don't turn it off
Merlin: It keeps doing that, and I keep feeling dumb about it, and I keep yelling an expletive at a piece of electronics.
John: Well, it makes you feel like a tough guy, I guess.
John: It does me.
John: Big strong man.
John: I'm like, are you kidding me?
John: You can't tell me how much time I can spend on Instagram six months ago.
John: Look at Apple News Plus.
John: So here I am.
John: I'm back in Seattle.
John: I don't have a phone.
John: I don't have a phone.
John: Okay.
John: I don't even have...
John: I'm not even sure if I have the picture of the seal that I took right before I went in the water.
Merlin: Because it might not have made it up to the cloud.
John: Well, because iCloud has... Because I haven't upgraded to $10 a month.
John: Oh, you still haven't upgraded, have you?
John: iCloud's not putting anything in the cloud.
Merlin: So I'm sitting in this state... Had they ever warned you that you were out of space or...
Merlin: As I like to say, I don't consider that a warning.
Merlin: I consider that a threat.
Merlin: But I think there's a distinction.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But like that's but yeah, you never you never took him up on that offer.
Merlin: Oh, what the heck?
Merlin: I'm off to Hawaii.
Merlin: Oh, you know, Mr. Hudsucker is such a good customer.
Merlin: I'll give him an extra set of reinforcements in his pants.
Merlin: So I'm anyway, Merlin right now.
Merlin: You have the phone.
Merlin: It's back there.
Merlin: I mean, you know, just so you know, because, you know, you and I both operate on pretty old information.
Merlin: I read somewhere on the Internet this week.
Merlin: Apple says actually turns out turns out don't stick your iPhone in a bag of rice like you would do with your old Samsung.
Merlin: Oh, I think it's racist.
Merlin: I didn't.
Merlin: All I did was look at the headline.
Merlin: I only can look at news for one minute a day.
John: After the phone got in the water, I went to a sushi restaurant that was called Miso Fat.
John: And it's Miso, M-I-S-O, fat, P-H-A-T, Miso Fat.
Merlin: I thought it was part of the saying Happy New Year Chinese, because it sounds about that dumb.
John: It's like six or seven different levels of hipster Hawaiian.
John: Yeah, like Wong Kar Khoi, Fat Chong.
John: That's the whole thing.
John: My dining companion said, why don't you ask them for a bunch of like a bag of dry rice?
John: Who was that?
John: Who said that?
John: Come on, be specific.
Merlin: Who was it?
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Was that your daughter?
Merlin: Was that your daughter's partner mother?
John: I'm like, get me out of here.
John: Who said it?
John: I'm not even going to try and save this phone because I am not going to ask them for a bag of rice.
John: That's funny.
John: Who said that?
John: Was it your sister?
John: No, I'm not going to tell you.
John: Was your mom?
John: I'm not going to tell you.
John: No, I'm going to make you twist.
John: It was Ari.
John: It was Ari.
John: I'm not at liberty to say.
John: Who knows who I was in Hawaii with?
John: It could have been anybody.
Merlin: You know, this doesn't actually help your case.
Merlin: It just merely reveals how many people it could have been that dunked on you that fucking hard that you won't say who it was.
Merlin: And I'm like, it could be any of those.
Merlin: It could be your daughter.
John: No, you know that was my realization a couple of weeks ago, that my funeral is going to be just a roast.
John: Where people are just like, oh, I've got one.
Merlin: Yeah, the way we laughed at it was you were having trouble.
Merlin: You had a short list that was getting really probably a little too short.
Merlin: Not the rapper, but of people that you would hope would be able to come up and say a kind word.
Merlin: God, I wish too short would come.
Merlin: I bet he'd have something funny to say.
Merlin: Yeah, you could probably get a SoundCloud rapper, like Lil Veal or something.
Merlin: But you had a woman you wanted to contact, and then she ghosted you or whatever.
Merlin: I don't know what you say.
Merlin: I think she said, how did you get this number?
Merlin: The person who was sort of your fallback?
John: The thing is, I know there are people that are going to say nice things.
John: I just want one person that doesn't say, but...
John: You know, one person that doesn't follow up their nice thing with then like a burn anecdote.
Merlin: The way I like to pronounce it is this.
Merlin: Comma.
Merlin: You know, John.
Merlin: You know, John could be such a warm guy and like when he was up to it, he'd make stuff sometimes.
Merlin: Comma.
Merlin: Comma.
Merlin: Comma.
Merlin: Comma, but.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: All the Statler and Waldorf out in the audience.
Merlin: Oh, that's true.
Merlin: He was like that.
Merlin: Remember that time he went swimming with his phone?
Merlin: Learned a lesson about love?
Merlin: I haven't heard that one in a while.
Merlin: Let's do it again.
Merlin: Give me Dave again.
Merlin: Do it again.
John: What an asshole.
Merlin: He'd be up in the rafters.
Merlin: Like, you know, Trump's always pointing up and talking about people looking down and who died in vain.
Merlin: I could see your father up there, him and Count Basie looking down.
Merlin: Looking down.
Merlin: Oh, so, so, so I, oh.
Merlin: When did he ever get to wear Count Basie's hat?
John: But I, there was another thing.
John: Somebody was telling me, because I was complaining about this Apple thing.
John: And somebody said, look, you need to go in and delete your old emails.
John: And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Thanks, fucking Einstein.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: So this was in order to, just going back a little bit here, that is to make room for iCloud things.
Merlin: With the small amount of iCloud you have, you'd be able to get the stuff you care about.
Merlin: And stuff you don't care about might be taking up, okay, like delete PDFs in your email program and stuff.
John: Yeah.
John: And what they said was, just search your emails and
John: Has attachment.
John: Has attachment.
John: And ones that say unsubscribe.
John: If you just search unsubscribe.
John: That's true.
John: Any email that has unsubscribe in it.
John: is probably going to be some mailing list garbage that you want to get rid of.
Merlin: As the young people say, they're telling on themselves.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: There it is.
Merlin: This is why I never, when I email you periodically or text you, that's why I never include an unsubscribe link.
Merlin: I'm not legally obligated to, and I think it sends the wrong message, if I'm being honest.
Merlin: Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Merlin: And that way, the idea is you clear out a lot.
Merlin: Now there's room for your photos.
Merlin: Exactly.
John: Well, and I started to do it.
John: And then I then I was like, this is really fun.
John: I bet there are a lot of things.
Merlin: This is how it happened.
Merlin: This is how you found all this stuff.
John: So I go so I think so I searched deals Like deal now, I know they're all garbage right third lowest price after on anchor battery charger so then I was like alert I searched alert every single thousand emails came up and
John: It had alert in it.
John: I didn't want to save a single one.
John: They were all garbage.
John: And then I was just off to the races.
John: Like, what are these words?
Merlin: Isn't that intoxicating?
Merlin: That's how I feel about all kinds of purging, physical purging, digital purging, any of that.
Merlin: Like, it's once you get over the procrastination of starting it, you get going and you're like, it could be something as kind of cool as like, oh, this is less difficult than I thought.
Merlin: But no, no, no, no.
Merlin: It's actually like, oh, no, this is a thing I'm really into now.
Merlin: This might be my new problem.
Merlin: I was so into it.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Isn't it crazy?
Merlin: Incredible.
Merlin: Incredible.
Merlin: And eventually— You get a little brave.
Merlin: You get maybe a little bit too brave sometimes.
Merlin: You're just like, select all these 50, and then do the big select all of all these.
Merlin: I'm not going to hand sort each one of these deals.
John: Yeah, I was worried about that.
John: And it's true.
Merlin: If they're old, though.
Merlin: Well, see, the opposite is true with you, right?
Merlin: Because if they're old, you want old deals.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: Because your daughter might want to read those.
John: But, you know, you scan through and you can kind of get a sense of like, oh, wait a minute.
John: You know, that's actually a letter from someone after New York Times.
John: Can you see like 60 things with the same, like, subject line?
John: You can delete them.
John: I deleted 20,000 emails.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And it...
John: And a lot of them had attachments.
John: Like a lot of them were big.
John: I just, because I've kept every email, right?
John: I've got tens of thousands of emails.
John: 20,000 emails.
John: I mean, it took me all day.
John: It was really great.
John: Were you doing this all on your phone?
John: No, no.
John: This was after my phone was dead.
Merlin: Oh, I'm sorry.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: So you're on one of your, you're at the sit stand desk, the standing desk, and you're going through on your current computer.
Merlin: You're going through.
Merlin: Well, this is because I just, I just left Hawaii.
John: So this was like a travel day type of thing where it's like, ah, I'm sitting around.
John: I have a home.
John: You're hanging out.
John: You haven't unpacked really.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I delete them all.
John: And in the process of this, I go, I've never done the thing where I went to attachments.
John: I didn't even realize that was the thing.
John: You could just look at attachments.
Merlin: You don't have to ask for an attachment.
Merlin: People will just send you attachments you did not ask for.
Merlin: And that's that thing that somebody and John back in the day, right?
Merlin: MP3s.
Merlin: The things like we would send each other, you know, not just us, but I mean all those people that that that was the easiest way before Dropbox before any of that stuff It was just so easy to attach three mp3s or whatever and then but you know, that's six megs and they're just that one thing Well, and what's crazy is I went back so you got me my first gmail address in 2005
John: You said you need to use this other mail program.
John: You can't keep living on hotrod at Capitol Hill dot net.
John: And I was like, oh, and you were like, listen, just trust me.
John: Never trust me.
Merlin: That's a really good email address.
John: Do you still have that?
John: Gmail.
John: Yeah capital.
John: That's well.
John: No because Capitol Hill dotnet.
Merlin: I was a service provider, right?
John: Yeah Yeah, and I wish I could access those those mails.
Merlin: I wish I could I don't know when Merlin at net tally.com or Merlin at the free net dot fsu dot TLA wait Merlin Merlin at free net dot scree supercomputer research Institute
Merlin: Freenet.scree.fsu.edu.
Merlin: That was my first email address.
John: Oh, is that stuff still out there?
John: Is it all gone?
John: Are the 10,000 emails I had at CapitolHill.net, are they gone?
John: Because it seems like nothing's gone, but it also seems like you can't access it.
Merlin: There's a term that used a lot in the Second World War, which is missing, presumed dead.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I like Midway, right?
Merlin: I would say missing, presumed dead.
Merlin: I would just treat those as gone.
Merlin: You don't think they're living on a prison camp on an island somewhere?
Merlin: like in a cave and nobody's told them there's probably a dot there might be a dot g random dot gz file on like somebody's zip disk that they took home one day that like you know what i mean there could be some kind of a dump or a backup somewhere but i don't think there is a i doubt there's anything approaching a john available backup i'm sorry to say
John: Right.
Merlin: That's the funny part, though.
Merlin: There's a lot about Gmail now.
Merlin: Just very quick.
Merlin: There's ways in which I hugely regret going all in on Gmail.
Merlin: I really wish if I'd gone in on anything, it would have been my own domain provider and, like, my own account that could be hooked up to Gmail.
Merlin: But making my Gmail address my thing, it's like I probably should not have done that.
Merlin: But at the same time, boy, there's a big... You described a minute ago.
Merlin: You saved all that email.
Merlin: Like, why wouldn't you?
Merlin: Like, well...
Merlin: I talk about this a lot, but I have this methodology that involves photos, receipts, Amazon purchases, very much Gmail as a way to like geolocate or not geolocate, but triangulate when something happened.
Merlin: And boy, there's a big hole basically before 2003.
Merlin: Because all that old mail, I don't think I imported a lot of it.
Merlin: I was still just checking it as a separate, usually pop or IMAP account.
Merlin: Those don't ever like make it into Gmail, but Gmail has basically created this library I never intended to create, but I'm very glad exists for being able to go back and easily find stuff that's 20 years old.
John: Oh, so I found this attachments tab and I went to it.
John: The first...
John: The first attachment I ever received was from you.
John: Wait a minute.
John: Is this what you sent the other day?
John: In July of 2004.
John: Not 2005.
John: 2004.
John: July of 2004.
Merlin: I was about to say, I never want to hear another complaint about how this show sounds.
Merlin: You want to know how it could sound?
Merlin: You want to know?
Merlin: You sent me some pictures.
Merlin: Mr. Watson, come here.
Merlin: I need you more.
John: You sent me those pictures of me using a Palm Pilot.
John: Yeah.
John: Sitting on your living room couch.
John: You were asked to review.
Merlin: You were doing a piece for something.
Merlin: The piece was done.
Merlin: And they're like, we need some photos of you using a mobile phone or something.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: If you're using a Palm Pilot.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And they'd given me a Palm Pilot.
John: And they were like, take it out on tour.
Merlin: I think you're wearing my Minutemen shirt, which you don't deserve.
John: And then the next picture, the next attachment I received here is from you.
John: Okay.
Okay.
John: From the 13th of July, 2004, a bunch of pictures of the Long Winters playing a show, and I'm wearing a Fiverr t-shirt, and we're playing at some low-roofed venue in California.
John: Okay.
John: Oh, no, no, no.
John: Oh, I'm sorry.
John: No.
John: Whoa.
John: Tell me again what year?
John: Okay, this is 2004.
John: These are pictures of us playing Maxwell's in Hoboken that were sent to you by Rainin' Athens.
Oh.
John: And then you sent them to me.
John: Wow.
John: Okay.
John: Or someone named Jen.
Merlin: Oh, I bet I know.
Merlin: I bet it was Jen.
Merlin: It might be Jen Simmons.
Merlin: Oh, Jen Simmons.
Merlin: Well, wait.
Merlin: It could be maybe Jeff Simmons' person.
John: Oh, Rain in Athens.
John: Not Rain in Athens, but Rain in Athens.
Merlin: My kid has a username like that on Letterboxd.
Merlin: Buried in Venice.
Merlin: It's a terrible name.
John: That was very fun for me to go and be like... Oh, I see.
Merlin: Here you are.
Merlin: You're wearing an electroharmonics shirt and your Elvis glasses and sitting on our pleather couch.
John: That's it.
John: That's it.
John: That's the first attachment I ever got.
John: July 5th, 2004, 5.40 p.m.
Merlin: Pacific time.
John: But the sad thing, the problem for me was immediately I was...
John: in this place of total nostalgia as i'm clicking through and it's like oh these are all people are sending me mail to my long winters account that this i'm on tour during this period there are pictures there are people i'm like who is that person i'm i had a whole email correspondence with them and i
John: I can't place who they are.
Merlin: And it's also pure.
Merlin: For me, when I go back, so few attachments, so little email formatting.
Merlin: It really is just like 16 responses back and forth, threaded, of just us, me and a friend from college, just shucking and jiving over the period of two weeks.
John: Yeah.
John: This was that period when John Flansburg and Robin Goldwasser would email me four times a day with like all this like, oh, come out.
John: You know what?
John: Like there's like one of my first attachments.
John: Easy times.
John: Oh, it was so fun.
John: Right.
John: Those are some times.
John: And and then and that's true.
John: And so I spent basically all last night.
John: Talk about.
John: my phone is in a bag full of rice somewhere and i'm like i'm free yeah and then i spent six hours looking at pdfs and attachments and phone picks from 2006 i don't i that's i would that would be totally see i said to madeline when you when you sent me the audio file that you sent me uh a couple days ago whenever it was did you listen to it
Merlin: I started listening to it.
Merlin: It's really bad.
Merlin: But I said to Madeline, oh, my God, I think I know what this is.
Merlin: I said on the last episode, John talked about that he was considering setting up a bunch of his old Macs, his old computers and like trying to get them going.
Merlin: I was like, I'll bet that's what this is.
Merlin: I bet this is John going through his he got one computer set up.
Merlin: He found the right cables.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Maybe you had the geek squad come out, but you, I figured you were trawling through old hard drives and we're finding like old MP3s and photos, but that was, that was, it was a Skype conversation that I recorded with you in.
Merlin: It's very short, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Should I drop the whole thing in right here?
John: I mean, yeah, you should, because I think it is the first instance of you proto Roderick on the lining.
Merlin: This precedes the backdoor pilot or backyard.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: It's been there the whole time, John.
Merlin: It's not a backdoor pilot.
Merlin: We did a backyard pilot.
John: We did a backyard pilot.
John: Whenever this was, whatever Skype conversation this was, remember when you first said to me, I'm going to start recording our phone calls and do a podcast.
John: It only took like five more years.
John: And I said, what's a podcast?
John: But what you were doing was...
John: This is what people can't understand.
John: We were already talking to each other on the phone every week for an hour.
Merlin: Pretty often.
Merlin: I know it was every week, but part of the reason that the idea for the jokey reason for the podcast that probably preceded recording by at least a year or two was we don't, you know, for whatever reason, it's life.
Merlin: We don't talk as much as we used to, and we seem to mutually enjoy talking to each other on the phone about whatever and just hanging out and shooting the shit.
Merlin: And that became the bit was, oh, we should just record this and put it out as what's called a podcast.
Merlin: Exactly.
John: And that was an example.
John: I don't know what the hell you were doing, why you recorded it, maybe just to see if you could.
John: But that was an attachment that was sitting in some...
Merlin: I'm not going to drop it in, because that's not the... Maybe we'll make it... You know what?
Merlin: I'll tell you what I'll do.
Merlin: If you want... Is it funny enough to put out, because it would be pretty funny if I added the intro music and the end and just released it as Patreon only.
Merlin: Okay, Patreon only.
Merlin: The lost episode.
John: We hope to lose it again.